


Helena: A Requiem

by Katydid_99



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Best read with music, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Crying, Death, Gen, Ghosts, Intentionally Vauge Death, Music, Pre-Canon, Reginald Hargreeves’s A+ Parenting, Sad, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vauge Circumstances, Violins, Wakes & Funerals, greiving, song in notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 22:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17875778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katydid_99/pseuds/Katydid_99
Summary: Vanya plays for Ben’s funeral. Not at. For.It’s the least she can do.





	Helena: A Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> Best read while listening to this:  
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yEePbyG93S4
> 
> Triggers: Canon-typical violence, family dysfunction, and unhealthy coping mechanisms

Vanya didn’t go on the mission. Of course she didn’t. She hadn’t gone on a mission since she was fifteen, when Dad had decided that was old enough for The Academy to fight crime without parental supervision. After he stopped going she did too, stuck in their enormous empty home with nothing but her violin as company.

They were twenty-two now, but Vanya couldn’t help but think that maybe someone else should have gone. The mission looked dangerous, and it was only Luther and Ben. Five was wherever he had gone off too, Diego moved out five years ago, Alison had an audition in LA, Klaus was grounded until he got clean (which wasn’t going to be happening any time soon,) and Vanya was… well, Vanya.

And being Vanya, she was expected to keep those thoughts to herself. So she did.

☂☂☂

Vanya couldn’t understand why, three hours later, Klaus screamed at a register that she didn’t even think she could hit on violin. Screams were common in the house, but not like this. This wasn’t anger or fear or even a drugged-out scream; this was pure devastation. A hand drove its way into her chest, icy fingers locking around her heart. It was all she could do not to drop her violin as she ran out of her bedroom to find her brother.

She found him on his bedroom floor, shaking and pale with black eyeliner tears streaming down his face. She grabbed him by the shoulder and asked what was wrong. “What do you see?” she tried, and “Did you take something?” and, “Klaus, please, you’re scaring me,” but all could do was scream. Scream and point and beg for forgiveness and, when Vanya eventually pulled his starved mass into her lap and held him there, cry. He cried and cried and cried, clinging to her like a child.

There was no way Vanya could know that her other brother stood a few feet away, uniform torn, face very shocked and tremendously sorry, just as helpless to stop Klaus’s tears.

☂☂☂

Vanya couldn’t help when Luther returned with Ben’s body a few minutes later. There was no time.

Dad, Mom, and Pogo thundered past her, closed around the gurney like the petals of a flower. She caught the barest glimpse of something dangling off the side- a hand, or maybe a tentacle- before all four disappeared into the basement.

Luther paced. Vanya waited. Klaus helped himself to a bottle of Dad’s port and nursed it slowly.

“They’re wasting their time,” he finally croaked, voice scratched raw. Luther looked at him and opened his mouth, then closed it and sat down, burying his face in his hands.

She hated herself the moment she felt it, but Vanya felt a sick twist of pleasure in her gut. There was nothing she could do, but neither could Klaus or Luther or even Dad.

For the first time in her life, she wasn’t the only powerless one.

☂☂☂

Vanya didn’t (couldn’t? wouldn’t?) stop Diego from storming into the house, shouting for Dad and knives brandished. She also didn’t (wouldn’t? couldn’t) stop him when Luther came out and he attacked the next best thing.

She was expected to stay out of all combat situations, even “just brotherly tantrums,” and she found that she didn’t really want to stop anything. She was angry. At Luther, at Dad, at the whole lot of them.

The fight continued, getting more and more gruesome, to the point where she wished Allison was still here, when Klaus wandered (ne: tripped) down the stairs to watch the show. Diego glanced in his direction for one second and Luther landed a devastating blow to his face.

Diego dropped like a marionette. Vanya gasped. Luther inched closer in a defensive crouch. Klaus popped another Xanax and pouted about it ending just as he arrived.

He didn’t pop up and keep going like he usually did in a fight (especially with Luther). Instead, Diego got to his feet, wiped the blood from his nose, called Luther a “spineless monster,” and walked away. Luther blinked a few time, not quite registering what just happened, before lowering his fists and walking off towards Dad’s office.

Meanwhile, Diego went straight up to Klaus, checked his pupils, and swore under his breath. Klaus had gone downhill at an alarming rate. He didn’t leave his room. He was wearing the same clothes he was four days ago down to the black tearmarks on his face. He smelled like weed and sweat and vodka. Vanya still hears him scream at night.

He grinned absently at Diego as he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Diego asked Mom to start the tub and ordered Vanya to help him get Klaus up the stairs.

The two washed him together, Klaus pliant and limp under their hands. Never objecting- just staring straight ahead at his chipped, black toenails. At one point he mumbled about the shower having shit water pressure.

She expected Diego to snap at him, that they’re in the bathtub not the shower, but he didn’t. When she looked up from the water to investigate she found Diego crying noiselessly, the tears a slow, steady drip from his downcast eyes to Klaus’s bare shoulders.

Vanya didn’t (couldn’t? wouldn’t?) stop that either.

☂☂☂

Vanya couldn’t stop her tears when Allison returned for the funeral. She walked in the door and the first thing she did is hug her. The candy pink body mist of their childhood was replaced by Chanel no. 5, but the smell of cocoa butter in her hair remained the same.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and it’s a rare time when she could tell her sister was being genuine.

And for the first time since the incident- almost a full week ago- she was given permission to cry.

☂☂☂

Vanya wasn’t welcome at the funeral. There were mixed messages involved.

“Of course you can go,” said Pogo, the ape years older than she ever remembered him looking.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Luther asked, tone uncomfortably accusatory.

“Why don’t you go play your violin?” Dad dismissed.

“Vanya…” that was all Allison said, tone impossible to read, before walking away.

Later she lingered in the doorway of Klaus’s bedroom, watching as Diego attempted pull some socks onto his limp feet. Klaus didn’t react; just curled in a little further on the big black hoodie he’d stolen from Ben’s closet. He was whispering to someone who wasn’t Diego, but she was too far to hear what he was saying. Diego caught her and gave a hard glare and she scampered away.

She wasn’t a part of the team. She was barely a part of the family. Ben was the kindest of them, the best of them, but she was mourning a stranger.

She didn’t go.

☂☂☂

So on that inappropriately mild afternoon while Pogo spread Ben’s ashes and Luther unveiled the statue, while Diego held Mom’s hand and Klaus sat at Allison’s feet, while Dad worked in his study and the rest of the house remained dormant, Vanya stood on the roof overlooking the courtyard and played. A small bag with all her worldly possession sat at her side, the sleeves of her sweater flapped, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, and she let a song be carried into the wind for the brother she lost. The brother she never got to have.

It was the least she could do.

It was the most she could do.

It was all she could do.

 


End file.
